Guest Artist - Barbara LeShoure
There are singers who sing the Blues .. and then there’s Barbara LeShoure who is the Blues. She was born and raised on the South side of Chicago and was weaned on the Blues by her father, Bluesman Jack Stepter (singer, harmonica and guitar). Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Sunnyland Slim and John Lee Hooker frequented her home and graced the kitchen table to feast on her mom’s fried chicken. At age 2, Barbara accompanied her father nightly to various blues venues and he had her singing the Blues. Barbara for a while swayed to Jazz, but her daddy insisted, "You better sing the Blues!" and my Lord, that's exactly what she does!!! For 17 years Barbara and her band, Devon Smith (guitar), Carlos Johnson (guitar), Joe Thomas (drums), and a cat she calls Chuggalug (bass) performed as THE House band at the Kingston Mines.
Barbara cites her influences as Bessie Smith, Nancy Wilson, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Etta James, Koko Taylor, Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin, and Gloria Lynn. Quite an impressive group with such a wide variety of artistic stylings and voices, but honestly, Barbara is right there with them and she can sing all and any of that! In fact, she has portrayed Bessie Smith in the off-broadway production of "The Cotton Club Review." Of her many other stage performances "Little Dreamers," "The Wiz," and "Don’t Bother Me I Can Cope" are but a few. Plus, she has 2 movie credits to her name, one of them Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. She was featured in the Fernando Jones' production of "I Was There When the Blues Was Red Hot;" she's performed on Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor; performed at the College Theatre created by Catherine Dunham; she's been featured in several Chicago television commercials and has graced the cover of Inside Chicago and featured in Interview magazines.
She was close friends with Koko Taylor and Valerie Wellington and counts Lonnie Brooks, Sugar Blue, Big Time Sarah, Billy Branch, AC Reed and many others as good friends. She has traveled the world: Spain and Japan twice with Billy Branch, Nigeria, and Israel, where she lived for a time. What's fun is to go out to a Twin Cities’ club and hear "Barbara LeShoure is in the House!" from just about any big name from Chicago like Billy Branch or Sugar Blue, and subsequently, she's called to the stage to sing.
She had a setback in the spring of 2010, what she calls "a little stroke" and is working hard to get back into the thick of the Blues scene. She tells everyone, "Don't count me out! I'm coming back!!"
PipJazz Youth Artist - Joe Suihkonen, trumpet (12th grade, Minneapolis South High School)
Joe grew up surrounded by music, as his dad played guitar in the local band, Out All Night. After starting guitar at age four, he moved on to drums and trumpet at 9. Joe remembers that his first jazz record was The Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane's Live at Carnegie Hall, and particularly “the tune ‘Sweet and Lovely’ was what really made me fall in love with jazz music.” Joe was largely self taught on guitar, noting that he attributes “my musical ability to the fact that I was playing music long before I could read it.” He did study classical trumpet at school and currently studies jazz trumpet with Dave Jensen. As much as he likes the instrument, he also notes that “It's a hell of a lot of work…keeping your muscles strong enough to play [and] that sometimes playing actual music becomes pushed aside…not a whole lot of people play with very much sensitivity and they just exploit the instrument's ability to be loud and abrasive.” But he also notes that “I love playing the trumpet because of the energy and inspiration it gives me. Whenever I pick up my horn, a world of possibilities opens to me.” In addition to bands and combos at South, Joe plays with local rock band Joe & Kyle and free jazz group Bad Acid. Joe plans to study music in college, and “get a BA in Performance and one in Music Ed, then go out East to get my masters.”
